What do you think is eating my green star polyps?

[Mabu]

I have noticed for the last few weeks huge quantities of my green star polyps have been "stripped off" the rocks and are gone... I see my sea cucumber and scarlet crabs and snails up there but I think they're attending to the die off of some larger creature suddenly deciding to feast on the polyps.

I recently added a Painted Fairy Wrasse and a relatively large Coral Beauty to my tank. I haven't seen either one of them munching on the polyps. I am suspecting the Coral Beauty even though I had one before for 4 months and it didn't touch any of the coral. I really have added nothing new to the tank in 4 months that would eat the coral - I did discover a limpet about the size of a dime and he grew pretty big since I'd previously seen him - I killed him and the tank creepers ate him post hate. Do you think this limpet could have been to blame? Do Coral Beauties eat at night? I can't see what's destroying the polyps - help!

 

[cindywennin]

Watch your hermits at night. I lost some beautiful daisy polyps a few years ago to my hermits. I thouht I was doing something wrong or not doing something right to keep them alive. Got the flashlight out at 2 a.m. and saw the last one snipped by a blue leg hermit.
Hate the hermits!!!!

Cindy

 

[jmeader]

It sounds to me like the work of a crab much bigger than your hermits.

 

[Mabu]

Hmmm, interesting.. because I found a blue-legged hermit in the tank the other day and I thought I got them all out so I moved him into my "hermit arena" tank.

I have 3 mithrax crabs in the tank including a very large one. But would they eat green star polyps? I need to know because if this beautiful coral beauty isn't to blame, then I don't want to go through the mayhem of tryhing to catch him.

 

[reefworm]

I think jmeader is right. I could be your mithrax, or perhaps a hitchhiker you've not seen. I just noticed one in my tank that I thought had died off about a year ago. He's huge!

Have you waited until lights have been out for some time and then checked w/a red filtered flashlight? You might spot the culprit that way.

 

[bowfront]

Thats funny about the blue legs and green star polyps. I've had both together for years in my tank without any problems. Crabs are a different story.

 

[danmhippo]

Try taking out the mithrax if you can. I had bad luck with them, 3 of them. They were content when small, but when they grew larger (about the size of half-dollar), I witnessed them munching on my starpolyps, coralline, pestering my clams, chew on my tube worms.....all the above in addition to their normal diet of green algae, seaweed, and whatever else food I drop in.

I have heard conflicting stories about them, some claimed theirs never cause any trouble, but mine does.

All in all, I removed all my crabs, of all kinds, and hermits. All I have left is snails, turbo and astrea. Just to be on the safe side. Any unknown traspasser and hitchhikers are donated to my LFS, free.

 

[Mabu]

This is beginning to make sense. I am having some crabs get pretty large in the tank, and I'm noticing some of my shrimps relocating. Something is moving in the tank and starting to be a presence.... I think it may be this very large mythrax crab that now has quite a big appetite.

 

[davelin315]

I found one of my turbo grazers sitting on my star polyps the other day, and I figured that he was just cruising along. Then when I noticed that he hadn't moved for a long time, and the polyps hadn't come out, I pulled him off. The snail had eaten through and was slowly munching away on the entire chunk. Didn't think snails were predatory like that, but this one was. You never know what might happen in your aquarium.

 

[Mabu]

I've lost about 40 percent of my Green Stars so I moved it to another tank. I've noticed some unusual movement in the tank. I have two shrimps that are now hanging out under my anemone - which is where my BIG mythrax crab used to hang out who is now nowhere to be seen.

Do these crabs eat polyps? I have one big one and he came out of nowhere.

Am I inappropriately thinking the coral beauty is doing this?

If I take the green stars out do you think something else is going to be gone after by whatever's doing this?

 

[Mabu]

I ended up moving my Coral Beauty to another tank - I saw her nipping at a lot of stuff in the tank. I'm not convinced that she is the culprit but wanted to be safe.

I have been seeing scarlet hermits on the polyps - does anyone know if the red-legged variety have a tendency of eating coral?